[Press ‘Play’ for the second best song in the movie…and not on the soundtrack]

Ramblings: Panty Linings Playbook

Final Proof: 3 Shots

You know how you get drunk wearing a suit? Not the part when you talk too loud so that everyone within shouting distance knows how over the top you went and not the part when everyone can smell the sheen gleaming in the sick that streaks your lapels. No, there are those moments before everyone becomes your best friend and before you get so phony all your bars are full of reception, before you try too hard to be funny and to fall in love, moments when you are a little off kilter, a little skewed but still you feel a little more you than you’ve been in a while because you are sincere and honest enough to let the crazy out a crack and you accidentally become endearing. That’s what Silver Linings Playbook is like.

“I’m going to switch this envelope out for the one that says ‘Argo’.”

SLP is a romantic comedy that is neither, and all the better for it. You know me and if you don’t, i’m the guy that came up with “dramantic comedy” or “drom-com” and go ahead, you can keep mocking me even after you steal that expression because that’s also the kind of guy i am. i hate romantic comedies more than i hate life itself and i only went to see this because it was nominated for an Oscar and plus the only thing easier in life than hating romantic comedies is mocking them and i’m all about the easy.

Imagine my surprise when i didn’t hate this movie. Why i didn’t is a whole ‘nother story—not really, it’s the whole story of this post and i didn’t hate the movie because it wasn’t a romantic comedy, it was a sexy shell with some serious drama deep down at the bottom, like panty liners hidden inside scanty panties. Also, the ending was happy in the movie just like panty liners are happy in their own way because it means she’s not pregnant, am i right?

“You’re so hot, and not just the sweaty kind.”

Basically i got emotionally invested in the characters here and i never do that for a movie like this unless it is this. Why? Read on, Buttercup.

The best thing about this movie were the actors and you know how sometimes you don’t know what makes a good actor because you can’t really put your finger on it? Go and see SLP for a good lesson on that. Chris “Mother” Tucker takes the role of the nutso friend and drives it straight to the place you’d expect and drops it off there without taking us anywhere. Some other guy (John Ortiz) plays the BF and you watch him going, “Yeah, he’s the BF because he’s acting the way the BF is supposed to”.

But Bradley Cooper (who is the person i will sleep with right after Eliza Dushku if i go gay) and Jennifer Lawrence (who i would sleep with first no matter what) fucking nail their characters. They play crazy perfectly because they don’t “play crazy”, they play crazy people trying to act normal which is a whole hell of a lot more realistic.

“You overpaid for your track suit, babe.”

The other good thing about this (yeah, i’ll skip the part about how De Niro finally gets his acting chops into a meatier role than he’s been served in a long time) is the director who’s some guy called David O. Russell (who also directed the fuckin’ excellent The Fighter). The cool thing about his directing is that you don’t notice it, which is what good directing is about (unless you go the other way where the directing is the best part of the movie, like Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula or Andrew Niccol’s Lord of War).

Everything comes together in this movie and chips in to elevate it above the normal level of a rom-coma and even if that doesn’t make it Oscar worthy, it still makes it worth a viewing.

Meanwhile, at the same sex marriage gala…

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 2½ Shots

“No, that’s a roll of dimes I keep in my pocket.”

Sure, i love Jennifer Lawrence (“Tiffany” in this movie), but more importantly i like her a lot. She’s hot but she wasn’t always hot and she won’t always be hot but what she will always be is a good actress and fucking cool. For the good actress part all you have to do is watch Silver Linings Playbook to see what i mean and for the cool part check out these quotes.

Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid. Everybody’s like, ‘How can you remain with a level head?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I ever get cocky? I’m not saving anybody’s life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I’m making movies. It’s stupid.

Or, and this is my personal favorite,

I went to the doctor today and got a chest X-ray of my lungs and discovered that my breasts are uneven! That was all I saw.

You know me (and if you don’t, my breasts are uneven too), i’m all about the investigative journalism, so let’s take a close up and personal look at this, shall we?

Jennifer Lawrence Bar None Wallpaper – Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

Like with most of the actresses, there are single shots of Jennifer in my drawers, down below. Just scroll all the way down until you hit the “Continue reading” link and then do just that.

Another wonderful actress gracing this movie is Julia Plenty of Stiles (aka “Veronica” here). i’ve liked her ever since i didn’t see her that one Heath Ledger movie (10 Things I Hate About You) but saw some Stiles stills and she was gorgeous and it was kinda like this.

Julia Stiles Bar None Wallpaper – Click on the Shot for a Wallpaper

What else is good about SLP? Here’s the blow by blow from my notes:

[Glimpses of] Ex-wife (Nikki / Brea Bee) in the shower

Closeups of JL’s [Jennifer Lawrence’s] “necklace”, i.e. cleavage & the moles [which i’ve just realized is a great fucking name for a girl’s band]

Vaguely dirty talk @ restaurant: Older mature lesbian with younger girl on her lap explaining / teaching her what to do [i put this dialog down in my drawers, if you really care.]

JL’s bare back

JL’s dance costume rocked halter top

One of my favorite lines from the movie was more about sex than romance. This exchange is between Bradley Cooper’s character (Pat) and a guy taking advantage of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) sexually.

Jordie
How am I being rude?

Pat
Oh, you know. You know. Come on. Sometimes it’s [casual sex] okay with girls like this, they wanna have fun, and sometimes it’s not okay because they got a broken wing, and they’re hurt, and they’re an easy target. And in this case, in this particular case, I think that wing is being fixed.

i already talked about the woman naked wife in the shower in the blow by blow and her name is Brea Bee and she’s this kind of ginger hot.

Regency Boies graced us, the screen and the film with her brief yet remarkable presence as “Regina”.

Also making the film a better place to be is Samantha Gelnaw, who played Jake’s Finacée.

For those of you more into quick passes than tight ends, there was Bradley Cooper in this.

Bradley Cooper rocking the sober in the Bar None

Drink: 2½ Shots

There was tons of drinking and drink references but it didn’t ply a serious role in the movie and that’s what 2½ shots tastes like.

Here’s the blow by blow:

PAT
Danny was in for assault because of crystal meth and alcohol.

DANNY
Bad combination.

—Pat explaining to his mother why Danny was with him in the mental hospital

BC (Bradley Cooper) brings wine bottle to dinner at Ronnie’s

Wine @ dinner

“LOL, we’re drinking expensive champagne and you sold out for a cheap ass Bud.”

Don’t drink too much, don’t hit anybody, you’ll be fine.

—Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) giving his son advice before a football game

Beer @ tailgate [party]

JL swigs Bud after putting De Niro in his place

White alcohol on ice @ Xmas

Chris Whatsisname [Tucker] drinking Bud at formal dance recital

When JL is stressed she marches straight to the bar, pounds on it, and asks for a vodka. Then a guy offers her another one.

Champagne on the table at the dance contest

Rock & Roll: 2½ Shots

It’s not my fault everything is 2½ shots, talk to the movie. i went 2½ here because the soundtrack has some really cool songs (two White Stripes jams, and even some Zeppelin!) but not all of the songs are on the OST, so don’t buy it without checking it out closely first.

My latest masterpiece got hung up over at The Bar None and only 6 of y’all even bothered to go there so i still got that wedged up in my craw further than a g-string up Kirstie Alley’s back alley when she bends over to pick up a dropped raisinette on the sidewalk.

i’m posting this to congratulate Bradley Cooper on winning People‘s Sexiest Man Alive 2011 and to let you know that, in honor of this great humanitarian feat, Saint Pauly posted a review of The Hangover over at WTF!? (Watch the Film).

Ramblings: The A-Team Plays Hard

Final Proof: 3 Shots

You know how you drink with a childhood friend? Not someone you’ve been friends with since you were in kindergarten, but some kid you knew for like one year in fourth grade and didn’t even like so much then and you lost contact when you moved away and completely forgot about him, truth be told, but then you happen to bump into him in some bar and you kinda dread hanging with him ’cause he was pretty dorky when you guys were younger but what the hell, right? You haven’t seen him for a couple decades and it might be fun to reminisce about how you stole his girlfriend and you can always cut out early if he bores you too much. So you’re drinking your first drinks and can you believe it, he actually turns out to be cool. He grew out of his retarded dolt phase and knows how to party and pays for some drinks and keeps you entertained with cool stories about all the crap he’s done since he grew up. i mean, you’re not gonna make him your best man or anything and maybe you’ll still steal his new girlfriend from him but that’s only because she’s hot and if he can get hot babes why not hang out with him a little longer and order another round on you? That’s kinda the way it was with The A-Team.

‘Cause i’m old enough to remember the original A-Team television series and i for sure am old enough to remember i didn’t watch it. i’m pretty sure the reason for that is that it sucked—wait, met me check…yeah, that was definitely it. It sucked.

Miss D and me decided to see this movie because it started right after i finished work and with our movie passes it’s not like we have to pay extra to see this so what the hell. Bottom line, i was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot of crap about the TV series that got up my nose like puke chunks when you barf with your mouth closed: The special effects reeked, for example, and no matter what kind of huge explosion went off or how many guns were firing, no one ever died. Parents must’ve complained about too much violence because a freaking missile could land dead center on a jeep full of bad guys and explode like a super nova while the A-Team fired rocket launchers and other heavy artillery into the wreckage and still the last shot you’d see were the bad guys struggling to their feet in a daze, and shaking off the armageddon before putting their hands up in surrender. God that chaffed my ass more than splinters in a barstool.

Like i was saying, though, the movie was tons better. Bad guys actually died and the special effects were above par (i won’t spoil anything for you but the climax is super climatic). The action was pretty much nonstop, too, and let’s face it, that’s the only reason you go and see this kind of movie in the first place. So, definitely a wild ride.

The downside, ’cause there’s always a downside, was that towards the end they started taking more and more time to set up the action. i don’t need the action set up. i don’t give a rat’s ass why they gotta do something, i just wanna see them do it and as violently as possible, please. There were also some minor things, like the Ultimate Fighter who replaces Mister T has a real hard time speaking in a way that you can understand him, and when he finallly is clear enough you relaize he can’t act. i’m guessing the director told him, “Mumble—if people can’t understand you maybe they won’t realize you suck.”

Apart from torturing a glorified pro-wrestler by asking him to remember words, the rest of the acting was about what you’d expect. i’d like to highlight Sharlto Copley, though, who played Murdock and did a pretty good job—he spoke with different accents and everything. A mildly interesting bit of trivia: his girlfriend of a gajillion years, fellow South African Jeanne-Melanie Haasbroek, has a cameo as “Army Hospital Therapist Elke”. Unfortunately, i couldn’t find any shots of her online for the Silken Butterfly section down below.

All in all, The A-Team turns in their A-game and as long as you don’t expect a world class performance, you’ll walk away a winner.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 2 Shots

Another fumble The A-Team makes is trying to pass off the Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel) / Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Bradley Cooper) romance. You want to inject a little estrogen into this testosterone? Perfect, i’m all for it, especially when the estrogen dose comes in a Jessica Biel (28) shaped container. But do we really need a romance between these two? No, we don’t. Here’s what we need:

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The solo shots of her are down in my drawers. Just keep scrolling into you reach them.

The beautiful Alex Madison, actress and, get this, stunt womanextraordinaire kicks off the movie with a blast as “General Tuco’s Wife”.

i’ve sent her a note to try to get an interview and i’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

i sent another query to the very lovely Katie Boskovich, who plays “FOB French Reporter” and sucks Face’s face. While waiting for her answer, here’s a collage to hold you over.

Another Silken Butterfly flitting so sweetly across the silver screen was Anita Brown who was super well cast as “Attractive Prison Guard”.

Finally, coming in toward the end of the game, we get Natalie L. James as “Lynch Secretary”.

For those of you who prefer A-Teams to B-Cups, i got some Bradley Cooper (35) for y’all:

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Drink: 2½ Shots

Check Out the Bud in Jessica's Hand

Face drinks Bud from a can post-mission reminiscing about Merlot with JB

Jameson (?) pre-mission @ campfire

“I got a bottle of Blue Label waiting.” / “Bottle? make it a case.”

CIA drinking beer & whiskey from fancy glasses in Stuttgart

Flashback whiskey toast to good hunting (Peck & General)

More Bud (bottle) placement on boat

More Bud Placement

Rock & Roll: 3½ Shots

The action was decent and there was a lot of it, especially in the first half when they kinda strung all the happening stuff together. Later on, like i said above, the A-Team got kinda worn out and dropped the ball by spending too much time in their playbooks.

On top of that, the music was pretty good over-all. Some nice rap, some nice guitar rework on the Mike Post and Pete Carpenter “A-Team Theme” and a pretty eclectic soundtrack overall. The only thing is, don’t be fooled by imitations. If you check out the OST on Amazon, you’ll see it’s just all that incidental instrumental background crap.

If you want the real lowdown down low, you came to the right place. Here’s the true music from the movie:

Mike Post and Pete Carpenter – The A-Team (Theme)

The Game – House of Pain

Trick Daddy featuring Deuce Poppito – Shut Up

Jorge Calandrelli – Trio Para Enamorados

Pete B., Stephen C. and Tim L. – You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

Tom Morello – A-Team Blastoff Suite

The Black Keys – I Got Mine

Frederick Knight – I’ve Been Lonely For So Long

John Philip Sousa – The Washington Post March

The Wildlife Band – I Don’t Want to Change Your Mind

Peter Schreier and Konrad R. – My Girl Has Rosenmand

Harry Simeone, Katherine K. – Little Drummer Boy

Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK

The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra – The A-Team (Theme)

Gary Sredzienski – I Ran 6 Miles

Steely Dan – Reelin’ in the Years

Boring Technical Crap

Written by:

Based on the television series “The A-Team” created by Frank Lupo and Skip Woods

Ramblings: New York, i Like You As A Friend

Final Proof: 3 Shots

You know how you drink in a New York bar? The patrons are a bag of mixed nuts ’cause some of them are light and others are dark, some poetic and others silly, some sad and some pretty boring. Most of them are sensitive and drink Manhattans like it’s a law and tell you their stories that are pretty cool, though occasionally a little slow or trite but sometimes the patron doin’ the tellin’ is cute and she means well and at least she’s paying for her own drinks and sometimes she even comes out with a tale that is truly beautiful and she doesn’t even slur so you end up passing a pleasant evening in this New York Bar but can’t help wondering if there isn’t something else more exciting happening out there somewhere. New York, I Love You is kinda like that.

James Caan, Olivia Thirlby, Anton Yelchin

For those of you out of the art film loop, New York… is the little sister of Paris, Je t’aime and basically follows the same premise which is to get a barful of directors to make short films about the respected cities using actors who are looking for art cred.

Julie Christie & Shia LaBeouf In The Bar None

Because i did both Paris, Je t’aime and NYILY i feel obligated to compare them. Paris threw me because i didn’t know what to expect when i saw it, but i certainly didn’t expect to see 18 3-minute movies and believe me, 3-minutes isn’t long enough to do much more than set up a story so it was like watching the beginning of 18 movies. Some of the shorts were fantastic and many of them were WTF?

Robin Wright & Chris Cooper In The Bar None

New York learned from Paris‘ mistakes by using fewer but longer vignettes and by having characters interact with each other to provide a vague sense on continuity. While none of New York‘s stories were as bad as Paris‘ bad ones, none of them shone like the diamonds in Paris, either. Which means New York is more balanced yet blander than Paris which is pro’lly true in real life, too.

Ethan Hawke & Maggie Q In Front Of The Bar None

So basically what we got here is a quilt of movies like sections of a city. Some parts of town are pretty cool, others too trendy and the rest places so boring you wouldn’t wanna go there on a bar bet without a box of wine and a rusty cutter.

Rachel Bilson, Andy Garcia & Hayden Christensen In The Bar None

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex:3 Shots

You wanna know how much talent was in this movie? Ask Miss Demeanor, she’ll tell you. It’s taken me days, literally, of hogging the ‘puter to wade through barrels of photos to get this crap together.

But enough about me, let’s talk about sex, baby. Definitely the most original sex scene (that they didn’t really show) is between Olivia Thirlby (the best friend in Juno and the hottie in The Wackness) and Anton Yelchin (the dude who plays the new Chekov in the new Star Trek). She’s in a wheelchair and after prom they go to a park and she throws a strap over a tree branch so she can hoist herself up before easing herself down onto Anton’s “Yelchin”. Enough about that, here’s the money shot of Olivia Thirlby (23), as Actress.

Click On The Shot For Wallpaper Size

There’s more shots down below in my drawers…

As for the actual nudity in the movie, well, there’s Drea de Matteo (as Lydia) with maybe a body double or maybe it’s really her in a sex scene with Bradley Cooper. Whatever, here’s the real deal…

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And here she is in The Bar None.

Apart from that, the sex and the nudity are done, babes. ‘Course there are a few babes… Like Rachel Bilson (28) who was super cute in the role of “Molly”. Sure, there wasn’t much acting required, she just had to be cute basically, but she did do that extremely well. Here’s the proof.

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There’s gonna be more shots of her in my drawers. You gotta scroll down for the GQ wallpaper and a shot of her with her crazy ass tongue.

But before that, how could i not talk about Natalie Portman? Not only was she in Paris, Je t’aimeand New York, I Love You (as Rifka), but she also directed a segment here (not the one she stars in, one that was way more boring and incomprehensible). Still, she’s Natalie Portman. Her last name pro’lly comes from some ancestor who owned a bar and so people kept saying “Port, man!” and she looks like this, so all is forgiven.

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Here she is in The Bar None.

Natalie Portman In The Bar None

Of course i got a lot more shots of her down in my drawers. Just scroll down.

What else do we got? What else do we got!? We got us Qi Shu, this hot 34-year-old Thai chick who used to do Asian soft porn before gracing us with her presence here as the coveted “Chinese Herbalist”. Here’s why i’m covetin':

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i know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Al! How could you forget Maggie Q!?” Ha! i tell you. Ha! You think i didn’t notice her as “Call Girl”? Sure, at 30 she’s looking a little older than she did in Mission Impossible III or Balls Of Fury, but like a fine wine she gets better with age. Here’s what i mean.

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What could more exciting than that? Maggie Q in the Bar None, of course.

To finish up the established actresses, i’m gonna break an age record here. Julie Christie (who played Isabelle), at 69, is looking pretty damn good. Ladies and Gentlemen, i give you Julie Christie, then and now…